Oil pastels vs soft pastels, and a review of Mungyo Gallery Artists' Soft Oil Pastels

While I grew to love soft pastels very quickly, oil pastels never caught my fancy. To me, they're like the crayons I used as a kid. I remember the sticky mess they used to make with all the crayon crumbs generated on the artwork, and not to mention, that awful petroleum smell.

Then I watched some YouTube videos of oil pastel artists and I was intrigued. I was fascinated by how they managed to create such beautiful artwork from what's basically crayons. I told myself to resist, it was just a phase. I wouldn't like them and I had already pledged my loyalty to soft pastels. I didn't need another medium to demand my attention.

And then, as the universe would have it, I was surfing Amazon Singapore (another dangerous hobby) and came across the 48-pc set of Mungyo Gallery Artists' Soft Oil Pastels on sale for only S$19 (about USD$13.50). That's less than half the normal retail price. Furthermore, many artists agree that the Mungyo oil pastels are the best bang for your buck when it comes to artist-grade oil pastels. I sat on the decision for two days, then when I suddenly landed a big contract, I decided that I was allowed to reward myself and placed my order.

This is the set. I cannot even. Pretty, pretty colours, this is eye candy to me.

Not knowing where to start, I turned to an artist who drew this fantastic forest scene. 

Picture: Tanoy

It was a timelapse video, so I thought the easiest way would just be to follow it, to get a feel of working with oil pastels. The good thing about this artist is he mentions the colours he uses, so you can just follow along. First, blocking in the base colours. It's really like scribbling with crayons!

Right up to this stage below, I was feeling pretty good. The colours worked nicely together and my trees were looking like trees. I've never been great at landscape so I'm thinking hmm...maybe oil pastels are the way to go if I want to paint scenery.

And then I added the light streaks. However, unlike the artist who managed to get that glow when he blended the yellow, all I got was mixed mud. Ugggghhhh. Failed drawing :(

Feeling quite buay kamwan, I tried again. This time, I decided to go free style and took a photo reference from PaintMyPhoto. I was drawn to all that purple.

Photo: Sandie Bell

 Ohhh...that colour palette ♥

 

This is my final piece. I haven't gotten the hang of drawing grass or bushes, but as an early attempt at a new medium, I guess it's a'ight.

So here are my overall thoughts. First, the Mungyo Artists' Soft Oil Pastels:

These are absolutely fantastic. I have nothing bad to say about them. No crumbs! No smell! They glide on super smoothly, blend beautifully, and the 48-pc set come with an awesome range of pinks and purples, which I love. They are completely not like how I remembered oil pastels to be. If you can get them at the price I did, they're totally worth giving a try.

Next, comparing oil pastels and soft pastels:

They share certain similarities, in that you can layer on colours, although with oil pastels, it's harder to layer light on dark. For both, you need to be a little careful as over-blending can muddy the surrouding colours. Though to be fair, I didn't test the oil pastels on pastel paper but on watercolour paper, so that might have something to do with it. 

Similar to soft pastels, the softer the oil pastel, the faster it fills the tooth of the paper, so you can layer less. The Mungyos are creamy and soft, but not as soft as the high-end Senneliers, which go on like lipstick. They're softer than the popular Sakura Cray-Pas Expressionist or Pentel Arts oil pastels though. I know all this from the Internet, not that I have any of the others.

I was also surprised to find that black coloured pencil can draw over oil pastels as easily as over soft pastels. Not light coloured pencils though. Again, that could also be due to the paper type.

The differences are:

• Oil pastels are way less messy than soft pastels. There's no pastel dust, and even though the surface will remain sticky, the final drawing won't smudge as easily as soft pastels. Having said that, oil pastel is much harder to wash off your fingers, if you use your fingers to blend. I don't like the feel of it and that oily residue needs some scrubbing.
• Oil pastels are generally a cheaper medium to work with than soft pastels. Not just the sticks themselves, but the surface too. You can use regular drawing paper for oil pastels. I used Canson Watercolour Paper and it worked just fine, giving quite a nice textured look.
• I find oil pastel painting a lot quicker. I completed each of the 9x12 inch paintings above in about an hour, mostly because you can cover a lot of the paper at one go. I feel it's easier to get that painterly effect because you really can't get details with oil pastels, unless you layer over it with coloured pencils.
  
• Even though both oil and soft pastels give vibrant colours, oil pastels shout louder. They're bold and in your face, whereas you can create more subtles shades with soft pastels. To me, soft pastels create a more sophisticated look whereas oil pastels give you that crayon-y look, which is not necessarily bad, just different.

My experiement with oil pastels was interesting. I don't generally like drawing landscapes but I feel that I would have better success attempting them with oil pastels than with soft pastels, especially since I like bold colours. For animals, I would still stick to soft pastels. However, I'm so glad to have ventured into this territory. It's quick and easy fun for times when I'm in the mood for non-serious art and don't want to have to think too much about it. Crayon art - the perfect escape into your inner child!

I'll end by sharing this video - this artist does the most phenomenal pop art portraits with simple Crayola oil pastels. Happy Thanksgiving!